J.K. Rowling Is Writing A Harry Potter Spin-Off Movie

Harry Potter Wiki
Harry Potter Wiki | Harry Potter Wiki

Good news, Potterheads: Warner Bros. has announced that J.K. Rowling will bring Harry Potter's world back to the big screen in a new film series. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will be based on a fictional textbook featured on the Hogwarts reading list in the first Harry Potter book. The movie will star the (fictional) book's fictional author, Newt Scamander, and marks the author's first foray into screenwriting.

If you're hoping to see Harry, Hermione, and Ron in these new movies, though, Rowling has some bad news: "The laws and customs of the hidden magical society will be familiar to anyone who has read the Harry Potter books or seen the films, but Newt’s story will start in New York, seventy years before Harry’s gets underway," she said in a press release from Warner Bros.

For the studio's part, the release promises that their "expanded partnership with Rowling also covers the continued expansion of its Harry Potter activities," which includes Harry Potter theme parks, Pottermore, games, and "consumer products."

This isn't the first time Fantastic Beasts has made its way outside of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In 2001, Rowling donated a written version of the textbook (which featured margin notes from Hogwarts' most famous students) for a charity auction. But she wasn't finished with Newt: "As hard-core Harry Potter fans will know, I liked him so much that I even married his grandson, Rolf, to one of my favourite characters from the Harry Potter series, Luna Lovegood."